Haze: What to do about corn without killing the golden goose?

[webfact]

Haze: What to do about corn without killing the golden goose?

By Michael Shafer 

 

 

We have a big, known problem: Corn is a major source of Thailand’s chronic haze crisis. We also have a big, unknown problem: Corn is a link in a multibillion-dollar supply chain that is vital to Thailand and also many of its poorest people.  The really big problem, therefore, is not what to do about corn and corn’s contribution to the haze crisis.

 

The really big problem is how to fix corn without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Warm Heart Foundation believes it has a low-cost and immediately replicable solution. First, though, it would be useful to review the agricultural origins of the haze crisis.

 

Corn is nasty stuff. The way we cultivate it in Thailand is inexcusable, no question. Corn burning accounts for much of the Northern haze crisis. Just three Northern provinces, Chiang Rai, Nan and Tak, grow 1.67 million rai of corn – 24 per cent of the national total.) The haze kills and sickens tens of thousands; we all pay for their care. 

 

What’s the corn problem?

 

Scale. Corn has gone from a regular part of the Thai diet to our biggest and fastest growing crop – that we cannot eat. It’s hog corn, 95 per cent of it unfit for human consumption. How did we get here? Demand for meat, milk and ice cream from a fast growing global and Thai middle class. Chickens, pigs and cows transform corn-based feed into drumsticks, steaks and Magnum bars very inefficiently. 

 

 The cheapest places to grow – and the farmers most desperate to do it – are in the rural North where steep slopes and bad soil are good for nothing else. Laws protect such lands, but the officials charged with enforcement ignore burning forest for new fields because more is better. (In 2017-18, 3.67 million rai of corn – 52 per cent of Thailand’s total – grew in protected forest.) The government itself, with the Thai Animal Feed Association, encouraged rice farmers to plant corn as a second crop in their paddies, to “conserve water”. 

 

What, then, is the problem?

 

The overwhelming expansion of corn on fragile soils in protected forests that are among the few remaining areas of biodiversity in Thailand. Monocropped corn generates huge pest pressure and demand for pesticides with lethal consequences. Corn itself is a particularly wasteful crop; only 22.2 per cent is kernel, while 78.2 per cent remains in the field to be cleared somehow before the next planting. (Burning is easiest, but since more than half of fields lie within forests, the forests burn, too.)

 

How do you “fix” this sick goose?

 

A recent article in The Nation highlights the work of leading Thai organisations that understand the problem and have wise solutions (“Thai govt urged to help farmers shift practices”, April 8). As BioThai director Withoon Lienchamroon observes, because just a few large companies, encouraged by government policies, are responsible, it ought to be possible to force a sustainable public-private solution to support integrated farming, not monocropping. Researcher Olarn Ongla adds that policy must also address farmers’ poverty, which prevents them from shifting to more sustainable techniques.

 

Sounds great – but despite the social costs of haze, neither government nor companies have incentives to play. Today, government and companies confront minimum costs and risks. Government has limited forest monitoring and use-enforcement costs or agricultural extension costs at the rural fringe. Elected with a popular majority, it can ignore protests in an opposition area. Doing nothing also avoids the risk of failure, dangerous when legitimacy depends on the ability to deliver quick, tangible successes. Meanwhile the companies face no risk of more costly corn, the largest cost component in animal production, and can use CSR programmes to placate opposition as they transition to foreign production.

 

Killing the goose that lays the gold 

 

What happens if such a scheme is imposed? The companies exit, with terrible consequences for Thailand. Companies produce corn in the Thai North because land and labour are cheap. If remaining in Thailand becomes too costly, they move to Myanmar. The growing conditions are similar, the labour is cheaper and there is no regulation. With the Asean Free Trade Agreement, the cost of importing corn to Thailand is minimal, although transportation is inconvenient. How best to solve that? Move the chickens, hogs and cattle to Myanmar along with the slaughterhouses, etc. The cost is soon paid back by the lower cost of doing business. 

 

As a result, burning in Thailand, forest encroachment and the amount of corn raised decrease. We outsource the problem, but ineffectively. The haze continues from Myanmar, where tens of thousands more people are exposed. Closer to home, tens of thousands of Thais employed in the shipping, care, slaughter and processing of meats and dairy lose their jobs, a fate shared by large numbers of landless farmers. There are no ready replacement crops, sources of demand or funds. Rural communities collapse faster, more uneducated and untrained farmers pour into the cities. Thai imports of chicken, pork and beef spike. The goose is dead without an alternative source of gold ready at hand.

 

Does the goose have to die?

 

Warm Heart thinks not. We are small Thai Foundation (CM273) without the international and national funding of big NGOs. We do not make plans for government or for major corporations. We believe that corn is here to stay, essential to the lives of Thailand’s poorest farmers who are forgotten in public discussion. We see a way to resolve the haze crisis through the market and poor farmers’ hunger for better lives: give them incentives and means to profit from not burning their corn waste. Right now.

 

Warm Heart believes that we, the citizens of the North, can choose between two futures. The next decade can be clouded with haze or small farmers can learn to convert crop waste to biochar and sell it as briquettes or fertiliser.

 

There is nothing high-tech, high cost, imported or impressive about Warm Heart’s solution. We teache poor farmers to teach other poor farmers to make their own equipment and biochar. An old Thai farmer teaching another farmer to make biochar from crop waste in a small, unkempt field using equipment designed in Thailand and built by the farmer himself is not something that goes on nice websites or merits a write-up in academic journals.

 

But it works. This is not a vague promise. This is not a theoretical possibility. This does not require years of testing. This is known and tested. If tens of thousands of small farmers learned to do this right now, there would be far less haze in the air next year.

 

Michael Shafer is director of the Warm Heart Foundation in Phrao, Chiang Mai.

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-04-16

[davehowden]

Far too sensible a solution to catch on here !

[Snow Leopard]

"Government has limited forest monitoring and use-enforcement costs or agricultural extension costs at the rural fringe"

 

I thought this was a military government and had an army and air force at its disposal? Let's not let them get in the way of making money. 

 

It sounds like there could be some kind of a biofuel solution here. 

[YetAnother]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

If tens of thousands of small farmers learned to do this right now,

telling the unsmart to be smart won't go anywhere, especially  'right now'

[Chang_paarp]

It is strange that corn is grown in many countries very successfully, however, very few of these countries have this problem. I wonder why that is?

Could it be because the farmers in other countries use the "waste" as biomass to improve the soil and reduce weeds through mulching? This reduces cash costs to the farmer. but it does not make the sellers of those "important" agricultural chemicals richer. Yes it takes time for the waste to break down but modern (and old) agricultural practice recommends putting a paddock to fallow after an intense crop, this diversifies the operation of the farm giving a range of income streams.

[Lungstib]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Laws protect such lands,

Right there is the Thai problem because we all know that laws are not protecting the land. There are laws but not known, not enforced and easily bypassed. Making use of the 78% of the corn not eaten is the obvious solution and needs implementing as soon as possible and only means making the poor farmer understand he is burning a useful product that could add profit to his crop. Thai farmers may not be geniuses but if they can turn something into cash they will go for it. But they need teaching and so far no govt has stepped up to do that. 

[Destiny1990]

Once we The farangs were the golden Goose here in Thailand but seems we are been replaced for corn?

[canopy]

I come from one of the largest corn producing nations in the world. I have never seen a farmer burn a field. And I have never heard of needing do gooders to come in and evangelize farmers to make stinky, smoldering, 3rd world biochar in order to survive economically. In my country the stalks are beneficial economically and often go back in the soil or used as silage. The problem here is not corn at all. The problem is whatever a thai farmer grows, be it sugar, rice, or corn, he burns it. They enjoy burning their stuff and it's as simple as that. They also burn all their trash and plastics. In order to solve a problem you first have to understand what the problem is. Until people realize farmers burn for enjoyment rather than economics the solutions offered may not work. The article got one thing right "burning is easiest"--it's perfect for lazy people who don't care about profits or the environment and love setting fires. There you have it.

 

[Oziex1]

1 hour ago, YetAnother said:

telling the unsmart to be smart won't go anywhere, especially  'right now'

Is it really about the farmers or the greedy profiteers.

[unamazedloso]

2 hours ago, Chang_paarp said:

It is strange that corn is grown in many countries very successfully, however, very few of these countries have this problem. I wonder why that is?

Could it be because the farmers in other countries use the "waste" as biomass to improve the soil and reduce weeds through mulching? This reduces cash costs to the farmer. but it does not make the sellers of those "important" agricultural chemicals richer. Yes it takes time for the waste to break down but modern (and old) agricultural practice recommends putting a paddock to fallow after an intense crop, this diversifies the operation of the farm giving a range of income streams.

Nail on the head.

 

[Toknarok]

     Yes the burning of corn stalks is bad but it's only part of the problem. The OP makes no mention of the vast areas of forest that are burnt to facilitate the picking of 'smoky' mushrooms. You can't move that to Burma.

[Vacuum]

1 hour ago, vinniekintana said:

Is it me or do thais actually enjoy smoke/smog?

How else can you explain the usual dawn/dusk rubbish burnings only a short distance from a garbage bin?

We farangs can never learn (no matter how long time we've been in Thailand) how they think.

[villagefarang]

Sounds like most of you guys have not seen the mountains where this corn is grown.  There is no way you can put machinery on those steep slopes.  Here is an area which isn't very steep, near to where I live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lannarebirth]

You can put fruit trees on those hills though.

[kwonitoy]

11 minutes ago, villagefarang said:

Sounds like most of you guys have not seen the mountains where this corn is grown.  There is no way you can put machinery on those steep slopes.  Here is an area which isn't very steep, near to where I live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those hills got planted with corn by machinery, they aren't out there doing by hand.

 

I grew up on a farm in Alberta Canada, until the late 60's we burned the stuble in the fields after harvest and the sky's in the fall looked like Thailand now. You did need a permit to do so

 

At one point the government stopped giving permits and my dad and other farmers went and bought a discer to chop up the stuble and plow it back into the ground.

 

The old the farmers here are poor and don't have the equipment is nonsense,

I've lived in Nakon Sahkon province in the sticks for 15 years now, There are more Kubotas than you can shake a stick at.

When they came out with the rototiller I bought one, the locals had never seen one and were amazed that you could prep rice paddies in one pass. Now in my village everyone with a tractor has one.

 

The problem is as everyone know, burning is the easiest, cheapest way to clear the land, And that fits Thailand to a T

[marcusb]

^^ exactly, I live in nan and the slopes are way too steep for machinery.  Planted by hand. harvested by hand. I don't know a lot about silage but back home when I saw the rows of it fermenting (?) in plastic rows it was for onsite use, don't know if would be feasible to ship/sell.

 

^ Fruit trees, tea, coffee, etc would be much better for air quality as well as curbing erosion on the hillsides. 

[villagefarang]

I ride these hills on my mountain bike and I can assure you there is no machinery involved.  It is all hand labor.

[Chicken George]

2 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

You can put fruit trees on those hills though.

Ypu can grow Hemp to. Medicine fiber rope and twine. Also biodegradable plastics but no this crop is destined for the few not the poor.. Hemp requires no burning of waste. No insecticides.. 

[hotchilli]

2 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

You can put fruit trees on those hills though.

 

2 hours ago, villagefarang said:

Sounds like most of you guys have not seen the mountains where this corn is grown.  There is no way you can put machinery on those steep slopes.  Here is an area which isn't very steep, near to where I live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee plantations would look good on those slopes... after the coffee bean harvest pick the young leaves to make tea.. year round crop..

[connda]

Switch from corn to marijuana.  Just about the whole plant can be used.  Problem solved. 

[overherebc]

5 hours ago, vinniekintana said:

The corn waste could be broken into the soil with rotavators

You would need a tractor obviously ...not many farmers have them

 

Is it me or do thais actually enjoy smoke/smog?

How else can you explain the usual dawn/dusk rubbish burnings only a short distance from a garbage bin?

 

 

 

 

Father did it, grandfather did it etc etc. They were older and wiser than me so that's why we do it.

[Eric Loh]

Stiff legal deterrent, strict enforcement and political; problem solved. 

[Odysseus123]

Shouldn't be planting corn there.

 

One day "village farang" will wake up in a treeless hell hole...it looks like it is happening before his very eyes..about 50% gone I figure.

 

However,they might have acknowledged that the unsupervised growing of corn might be a problem but then again,it might not as who needs trees and natural forestation anyway?

 

Come to Chiang Mai..the Sahara oasis of SE Asia.

[canuckamuck]

7 hours ago, canopy said:

I come from one of the largest corn producing nations in the world. I have never seen a farmer burn a field. And I have never heard of needing do gooders to come in and evangelize farmers to make stinky, smoldering, 3rd world biochar in order to survive economically. In my country the stalks are beneficial economically and often go back in the soil or used as silage. The problem here is not corn at all. The problem is whatever a thai farmer grows, be it sugar, rice, or corn, he burns it. They enjoy burning their stuff and it's as simple as that. They also burn all their trash and plastics. In order to solve a problem you first have to understand what the problem is. Until people realize farmers burn for enjoyment rather than economics the solutions offered may not work. The article got one thing right "burning is easiest"--it's perfect for lazy people who don't care about profits or the environment and love setting fires. There you have it.

 

Excellent summation, they love to burn stuff. They can't wait to burn stuff.

Every year our lychee trees drop millions of leaves and make a really great anti-weed mat, soil moisture protection, and provide nutrients for the trees.

until the day the burning ban is over. Out come the rakes and lighters and bye bye leaves. Later they are out there spraying and chopping down the weeds that sprout from their fire hardened soil. Such meaninglessness.

[canuckamuck]

The article started out good, but it falters on one important point. No one is burning corn waste at this time of year. They are burning overgrowth to plant the next round of corn. The seasonal smoke is still corn related (aside from the burning forests for mushrooms) but the corn stalks left over in the field are not causing the smoke problems in March and April.

[canuckamuck]

5 hours ago, kwonitoy said:

Those hills got planted with corn by machinery, they aren't out there doing by hand.

 

I grew up on a farm in Alberta Canada, until the late 60's we burned the stuble in the fields after harvest and the sky's in the fall looked like Thailand now. You did need a permit to do so

 

At one point the government stopped giving permits and my dad and other farmers went and bought a discer to chop up the stuble and plow it back into the ground.

 

The old the farmers here are poor and don't have the equipment is nonsense,

I've lived in Nakon Sahkon province in the sticks for 15 years now, There are more Kubotas than you can shake a stick at.

When they came out with the rototiller I bought one, the locals had never seen one and were amazed that you could prep rice paddies in one pass. Now in my village everyone with a tractor has one.

 

The problem is as everyone know, burning is the easiest, cheapest way to clear the land, And that fits Thailand to a T

All by hand, I have watched it dozens of times. The guy in front has a long bamboo pole with semi-circle chisel bit on one end. And the guy following is dropping seeds in the holes made by the guy in front. And they move along at an impressive pace. Usually, there are 3 or four pairs of planters covering a lot of land in a short time.

[xtrnuno41]

10 hours ago, Chang_paarp said:

It is strange that corn is grown in many countries very successfully, however, very few of these countries have this problem. I wonder why that is?

Could it be because the farmers in other countries use the "waste" as biomass to improve the soil and reduce weeds through mulching? This reduces cash costs to the farmer. but it does not make the sellers of those "important" agricultural chemicals richer. Yes it takes time for the waste to break down but modern (and old) agricultural practice recommends putting a paddock to fallow after an intense crop, this diversifies the operation of the farm giving a range of income streams.

machines and flat ground. Cant beat picking by hand.

 

[kwonitoy]

2 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

All by hand, I have watched it dozens of times. The guy in front has a long bamboo pole with semi-circle chisel bit on one end. And the guy following is dropping seeds in the holes made by the guy in front. And they move along at an impressive pace. Usually, there are 3 or four pairs of planters covering a lot of land in a short time.

I stand corrected,

 

[WeekendRaider]

9 hours ago, Vacuum said:

We farangs can never learn (no matter how long time we've been in Thailand) how they think.

this is a widely repeated narrative, but it is only true for most white folks... or Europeans, or whatever.  some of us are just as bright as the other “kohn tang chat”.  maybe it’s related to being able to speak the local dialect... whichever one it is, and living with Thai more closely than other white folks.

[Odysseus123]

1 minute ago, WeekendRaider said:

this is a widely repeated narrative, but it is only true for most white folks... or Europeans, or whatever.  some of us are just as bright as the other “kohl tang chat”.

Spendid.